“Sir, are you sure we need to take such drastic measures?”
A surge of belly pain reminded Yoon of his desperation. He envisioned Captain Tong having sent a beacon to the North Korean Navy announcing his position, and he wondered why a depth charge hadn’t ended his life.
Then inspiration struck.
“We have no choice,” he said. “But we can turn the odds.”
“How?”
“Choke him out. We don mobile breathing units, start a fire, and open the door.”
“Starting a fire is suicide.”
“Not if we contain it. Grab a pot from the galley and make a small bonfire. We only need smoke.”
The senior chief frowned in thought, and then his face lit up.
“I’ve got just the thing, sir. I’ll be back.”
The veteran fetched his ingredients and then returned cradling a pot in front of his midsection. He lowered it beside Yoon. It contained printer paper, the splintered wooden shards that Nang had broken from the former executive officer’s stateroom chair, and a bottle of goryangju liquor.
“Goryangju?” Yoon asked.
“Eighty proof. I keep a bottle for the men in the torpedo room. It helps the hours pass faster during our watch.”
“This should work.”
“Darn right it will, sir.”
“Before you do, bleed air from the forward banks to make sure most of the smoke gets pushed into the engineering space.”
“Right, sir.”
The veteran stepped away and traced piping to a valve. He twisted it open and followed the tubular metal downstream to a handle. He yanked it, creating a hiss and popping Yoon’s ears.
One by one, the survivors marched by Yoon to the berthing area to grab mobile breathing units. One of them grabbed the pot and the combustibles. Nang grabbed the last two units and helped slip the mask over the officer’s face.
Mask electronics amplified the senior chief’s voice.
“We’re ready, sir.”
“Help me up.”
Yoon’s adrenal glands pounded his body with epinephrine and exorcised his belly pain. His heart raced, and he prayed that he wasn’t condemning his men to death.
Nang lifted Yoon by his armpits, and fire filled his belly. The lieutenant gnashed his teeth as the senior chief helped him walk outboard a row of electronics cabinets.
At the compartment’s bulkhead, he turned and saw rifles and shotguns poking over a bulwark of bodies. They reached the door.
“Lay me here,” he said.
He heard his buzzing amplified voice from his breathing unit’s mouthpiece echo off the bulkheads as Nang lowered him against a cabinet facing the door.
“Give me back my pistol.”
Nang handed him a weapon and then sprinkled alcohol into the pot beside him. The other survivors had piled stuffing from chair backs beside the vessel to provide more fuel, flames, and fumes.
“Whenever you’re ready, sir. We’ve all got our masks on. I’ll stay here with you. You scan to the left after I open the door, I’ll scan to the right.”
“Very well,” Yoon said. “Wait until I give the order to open the door. Light it up.”
Nang lifted a lighter from his coverall pockets and ignited a wad of folded paper. Tossing it into the pot, he stepped back. Flames danced, pulsing heat over Yoon’s face and floating smoke into the overhead piping.
“More smoke,” Yoon said. “Keep adding fuel.”
Darkening gray wisps filled the air.
“When I say, open it ten centimeters.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now!” Yoon said.
The senior chief cracked open the door, giving Yoon an angle of view into the engineering space. Hands trembling, he peered through his facemask at his wavering pistol sights.
A minute passed as eternity, and smoke billowed through the door. His heart skipped a beat as he heard coughing on the other side, and he knew that Tong had been waiting in ambush.
A second man began coughing, and the hacking became intense. Yoon heard the clanking of lockers opening as his adversaries sought breathing masks. Then he heard the hiss and snap of air hoses mating with air lines.
Lacking mobile breathing units, his adversaries were tethered to air manifolds. They could move short distances between manifolds, or they could discharge their weapons. But they would be challenged to do both while finding cover.
He thought he had the advantage. Then he heard a loud, repeating clink.
“That sounds like he’s trying to manually blow the after ballast tanks, sir,” Nang said. “He’s knocking the valve open.”
Yoon’s heartbeat accelerated.
“Head to the control station, pump all water to after trim tanks. Then flood water from the sea into our auxiliary tanks.”
“Sir?”
“He’s trying to surface the stern! He wants us to be found now. You have to make us heavy and counter his efforts, or we’ll breach the surface.”
“I will see to it, sir.”
A minute later, Nang returned.
“It’s done, sir.”
“How can it be done? You weren’t gone long enough.”
“I set the system up for continuous flooding and pumping. He won’t surface us.”
Yoon felt the deck tipping as Nang looked into the engineering space.
“They’ve retreated to the reduction gears, sir.”
Yoon nodded and then looked at the mound of bodies.
“Climb over, men. It’s time to move.”
The survivors crawled over their buttress of corpses and huddled by Yoon’s side.
“The senior chief will open the door. I will fire three rounds of suppression fire. Then the first two of you go in and hide behind the diesel generator. Once inside, use the generator for cover as you move deeper in. Then the next two men will enter and hide behind the near end of the generator.”
In the smoke, Yoon saw heads nod.
“Ready, senior chief?”
“Ready, sir!”
“Open!”
The door crashed back on its hinges. Yoon leaned, stifled a grunt as fire blazed in his abdomen, and aimed his pistol. Three pops rang from his weapon, and he lowered it.
“Go!”
Two figures blocked his vision while passing through the door. He aimed at two humanoid figures and fired more rounds.
“Go!”
Two more men passed.
“Senior chief, stay here with me and take aim. We have six guns against their two. We can do this.”
Nang rotated his rifle barrel through the doorway, leveled it, and fired. Yoon’s ears rang, and a cacophony of shrill noises rang from the room as weapons spoke.
He then discerned the gentle grinding of polished gears, and he realized that Tong had restarted the shaft.
Then, a cracking explosion echoed.
After a moment of disorientation, Seaman Hong’s voice passed through the doorway.
“He’s blown up the shaft! The shaft is sliding out the back of the ship! It’s sliding out the back!”
Recognizing that a severed shaft would create a morbid hole in the ship, Yoon realized that Tong was committing mass suicide. He wondered if such madness represented the backup plan, the makeshift reaction to the crew’s smoking and storming of the room, or if it had been the traitor’s original intent.
“Senior chief!” he said. “Secure the stern bearing, now!”
Nang darted into the engineering space, and Yoon crawled behind him. When he reached the propulsion control station and shut off the main motor’s electronic power, he noticed that the shooting had stopped. Craning his neck, he saw the two adversaries lying on the deck.
One of his men lay dead, but his senior chief had reached the end of the compartment, his foot flailing in the air as he reached behind the motor to cause the bearing’s emergency seal to clamp down on the shaft.